Action is more interesting than inaction.

Climbing with Peter, Part 2.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:32:12 GMT

I have a strained tendon in my right-hand ring finger, and I am trying to give it a chance to recover, "a chance" being to my mind a week or ten days, though I suspect a doctor would suggest more. Peter had this injury back in the spring and it took about three months to heal, but he's like me.

Peter's prepping for a competition next week, so even though I am trying to take it easy (Cynara, in my fashion) I go to the gym with him. I know I'll climb some because I can't be there and not climb, but I always figure I'll stick to little stuff, easy stuff, top-roping, maybe a few 5.8s or some low-grade bouldering. But Peter's climbing 5.11s on a regular basis, and I get so interested in the routes and his solutions that I end up trying them too. I know there's going to be a place in a route like that where I simply cannot make my hand do what it needs to, and I know I'll bail out there (see? not irresponsible at all, I assure myself) but until then, a 5.11 isn't going to be any harder on that hand than a 5.9. That part at least is mostly true.

So last night we went. Peter's not the only one prepping for the comp, so the bouldering areas were packed with people I don't recognize: hard-core boulderers who would never otherwise set foot in Stone Garden's rarefied air; people who climb once in a while but figure why not compete? it'll be fun; visitors who want to get a feel for the gym ahead of time. Peter and I are top-roping, since I can't give him much of a run for his money right now, with my finger taped. For all the crowds elsewhere, the top-rope and lead walls are almost empty.

I am on a 5.11, two-thirds of the way up, eighteen feet or so, maybe twenty. I've passed one crux, an elegant little weight-shift problem that I feel smug about. I'm into the second crux now: two small underclings for my hands and a single foothold so high that my hands are at about knee level. I have to hunch up nearly double to stay on the wall. I imagine I look like a barnacle, clinging like this. Does this route make my butt look big? I don't think about these things when I'm climbing, thank god. I need to redistribute my weight so that I can snake a hand to the next hold, a red resin thing three or so feet straight up. The weight question is confusing enough that I'm not even sure which hand has to go up, and I can't figure out how to get my other foot anywhere, even flagging in any sort of productive way.

So I try stuff and fall. Left hand up? Fall. Peter, belaying, catches me. Right hand? Fall. What about shifting on one of the underclings and trying to make it a lie-back? Fall. Okay, smear a foot on the wall? Slide and then fall. Fuck it, then: jump for it. Fall. I probably fall ten times. Each time, Peter catches me. I hang in my harness cursing and trying to figure out another option. Eventually I either see something new worth trying, or I figure that maybe I can just try the same thing again and get a different result. The mark of a fool, right? I get back onto the little underclings and the high foothold. "Okay, climbing again," I call down. He loosens up on the rope, and I try something else. And fall. He ends up lowering me to the ground, the route unfinished. He sends it with one fall.

Ten times. More, maybe. I probably wouldn't die if I fell eighteen feet without Peter catching me, but it would nevertheless suck. I broke my leg falling from twelve onto pads. But he will catch me. It doesn't even occur to me he might not, though sometimes when I'm hanging up there wracking my brain, I realize falling is within the realm of possibility.

Back in the spring, Peter and I went bouldering outdoors. We drove three hours or so out to Leavenworth: a silver overcast day; hot coffee and breakfast sandwiches from the Sugar Shack in his little Mini, Kraddy for music; the weather so cold that I never got out of my heavy sweater even after we started climbing and my metabolism kicked into gear. We climbed a bunch of easy stuff and then some V-2s.

I freaked myself out on one of those. It started as a friction slab with enough crimps and holds to be easy. About ten feet up there was a perfect pause, a little triangular ledge just big enough to stand on and assess the next move, the crux. After that I would lift myself up over a very slight overhang, and then scrabble up more slab and onto the top of the boulder, eighteen feet up. Presumably when I got up there I would strike a pose and bugle, the monarch of the glen.

Bouldering problems don't usually have resting places. They're short and often based on dynamic movement. If you stop or even slow down, you may lose the momentum that will take you to the next move. But there's different kinds of momentum, and one of them is courage. I got up to that safe, happy little ledge and paused, looked up to see what the next move was going to be. I've done that move -- hand onto a smallish flake, bring my feet up, and then kneedrop and stretch for the next handhold, foot comes over the lip, and heave up -- a thousand times in the gym, and a lot of times outside, leading or on top rope. But it was hard to imagine leaving this secure little triangle of ledge to take a chance like that. In fact, it seemed impossible.

Ten feet up. Fifteen from my 5'8" height to the ground, so it looked worse than it was. I shouldn't have looked down, but I was trying to assess whether downclimbing was an option. Downclimbing slab sucks: if you slip (and you will), you'll finish the downclimb sliding face- and palms-down along lichen-caked basalt. This can't be good. Peter was down there, but I wasn't on a rope. He couldn't save me from falling, couldn't do anything but encourage me.

And then it started raining a little.

I did finish that route, scared shitless and shaking. I did not bugle at the top, though Peter cheered for me. I walked down the back of the boulder, an easy little scramble. Why do we do this? Climb rocks when we could just stroll up the backside? Oh yeah, because that's what we do, we climb.

The rain stopped immediately and the rock mostly dried off. We bouldered some more, but my heart wasn't in it. I started a lot of things but invariably freaked out at the top-off, when I needed to throw a leg onto the top edge of the rock and heave myself over it. These were all low-balls, V-0s and such, so I could just lower myself from wherever the freak-out occurred, and drop maybe a foot to the ground. I couldn't help but despise myself for my fear, especially since Peter was finishing all the things I was failing at.

The last route of the day was a V-1, a long slab -- fifteen feet? -- with a wonderful little seam of quartz or something, that gave some actual handholds amid all this grainy featureless rock. Peter climbed it, heaved himself over the top and ambled down the backside. I climbed it, got to the final move and freaked out, froze and started crying on the wall. This is no way to climb. I knew I would fall -- you tighten up, start crying, your hands get tired -- but I couldn't bring myself to make the move, and there was no way to downclimb the slab that wouldn't for all practical purposes be identical to falling. When I tried to make that final move, I didn't commit -- or maybe I did and couldn't have landed it anyway. I fell.

And Peter caught me. I slid face-down along fifteen feet of slab. Later, I saw I had scrapes along my hands and forearms and badly bruised knees, but at the time the only thing I felt was Peter steadying me: the soles of my feet for just an instant on his palms, and then his hands along my ankles and thighs, at my waist and up my ribs, under my arms and at my shoulders; and then we slid together to the ground, on the bouldering pad. Safe. He didn't stop my fall, didn't even try to. Each contact point slowed me a hair but mostly re-aimed me onto the pad.

Peter catches me, and I catch him. He tells me to take the rest of the week off climbing, to give my finger a rest. He knows how hard that's gonna be, how tempting it will be to slide in at least a couple of V-0s or some traversing. I wouldn't listen to a doctor (or to you, dear readers, alas), but I will listen to him, or try anyhow. Because I know what it feels like, with my feet cradled on the palms of his hands.

Golden Gardens in November.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:12:53 GMT

I go to Golden Gardens Park a lot. It's a little more than a two-mile walk, and getting from here to there is nearly as interesting as the park itself. I pass an out-of-business marine consignment shop; a pole-shed with a giant sign: HAUL-OUTS HALF PRICE! and a yard filled with boats; several of the sorts of waterfront restaurants where people with sunburnt noses stop for drinks on a Saturday afternoon lateish; and a large marina, where those people either keep their boats (if they have them) or wish they did.

There's some trees and a bit of salt marsh, but Golden Gardens is mostly a beach: a sandy part facing west toward the Olympics across the Sound, a rocky strand facing the San Juan Islands, out of sight to the north. I was walking barefoot, because that's what beaches are for, even when they're so cold that I am wearing sweaters and scarves and gloves, bundled to the ankles. The waves poured over my feet, very clear, and stripped back the sand from the beach's rocks as I watched. A jet came in high, from the south, and performed that wing-stand that looks so lazy from the ground but from inside feels just a degree from slipping sideways to the ground in a stall; and straightened, facing south now and lower. I picked up a rounded stone that when wet was the color of saffron with a white-quartz streak running through it; I know from experience that when it dries it will be dun-colored and not worth the keeping, but I kept it anyway. I was listening to Michael Bublé and alternating between weltschmerz and happiness depending on the track.

One man on the beach had two dogs, two rangy, ruddy sisters with long whip tails and happy expressions. One of the girls was missing a front leg. She moved fairly easily with that engaging hop that three-legged dogs have, but of course her sister ran circles around her. Her dad was carrying a rubber toy shaped like a ball with feet and a little dragon tail. He cranked up to throw it and the three-legged girl sat back in her haunches, ready for the chase, but I had to wonder how this would work out. I didn't imagine she could run as far as he could probably throw it, a big strong-armed guy like him; and the other dog would outpace her in no time. Where would the fun be in that?

And then he threw, with all his strength -- straight up. We all watched the ball, its ridiculous little feet and tail, as it rose thirty feet against the red sky. When it landed, the three-legged girl tore the six feet over to it and caught it on the second bounce, her sister spinning as she danced beside them.

Peter's climbing.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:03:40 GMT

To Stone Gardens this morning with Peter. All top rope, mostly not very good on my part.

Back in the day, I was a better climber than Peter. Lately, though, I've been dogged with injuries -- the sprained ankle in June and now an injured finger -- and he's been pushing himself hard, and as a result he's climbing considerably better than I am. This is occasionally a bitter pill to swallow.

It's connected to a fundamental question I am asking about myself these days. Since March of 2006 I have been driven to climb, and driven by climbing. Climbing has defined me, more than my relationships or job or home or even writing. But I don't know any more. I lost some passion toward the beginning of the year: I had a bouldering fall in the gym which scared me for some reason, and then a bouldering fall outside which scared me a whole lot more. And then the sprained ankle. Over the same period, I've been unemployed, writing a bunch, teaching over the summer, up for some awards, traveling some. These have been pretty important, maybe (I whisper) more than the climbing.

I have thought the unthinkable thought: What if I stop climbing so hard? Who am I if I stop being the woman who climbs V-4s, who throws her heart at the wall, even through chronic pain, the knowledge that I will pay for this for the rest of my life? I always knew there was an expiration date to my climbing, but I assumed I would be stopped by injury, some catastrophic failure of a body that did not spend its youth becoming strong. I did not consider that it might be voluntary. And what if I do not stop climbing, but just climb softer: easier routes, more breaks, for fun? Can it even be fun for me to do so?

What is climbing if I do not throw my heart at it? And who am I if I do not do so? I am not willing to answer either of these questions yet, and I am glad I do not need to. For now, I will wait impatiently for my finger to heal, and I will pine to be climbing again as well as Peter. And hope my heart is still strong, whatever is next.

Nice thing, great thing.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:00:53 GMT

gwyndolin has been staying with me since she came up from San Jose on the train Tuesday. Fun has included but not been limited to climbing(!), Pike Place Market, a lot of baking, and less writing than either of us expected. Tonight being her last night in Seattle, we went over to La Casa jeanineers and woadwarrior to spend time with corwynofamber, Vicky, cupcake_goth, and stroppy_baggage. corwynofamber gave me a doll-house bathtub full of tiny rubber (flying) monkeys (and one ape), which makes him A+++++; and jeanineers loaned a Che Guevara hat and sunglasses that fit the WFA bust of Lovecraft. gwyndolin has uploaded pictures.

And now a public service announcement: I am seeing someone!

World Fantasy, but mostly climbing.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:59:13 GMT

I enjoyed the World Fantasy Con this year more than any con I have ever attended -- ever -- and not just because I won an award and all like that. I met some wonderful new friends, and reconnected with people I have taught or worked with or been friends with or all three. There's never time at a con to see everyone for long enough, but that was okay. I was just so happy to see everyone I could. Oh, and the hotel was luscious, and San Jose was beautiful, and my friends arian1 and harunoame live there. And I read "Spar" to a roomful of people, and that was totally exhilarating and terrifying. And I dressed up a bunch.

Back on Wednesday, arian1 and I went to the Sunnyvale gym, Planet Granite, and bouldered for a while. It's a big place, with high ceilings and a pretty good bouldering area, though practically no vertical walls there, and no slab at all; really nice staff. I'm always awkward and self-conscious in new gyms and I'd pulled something in one of my fingers last week, so I wasn't expecting much from myself -- which was about what I got, bailing off the penultimate holds of a bunch of easy things because I was nervous about the final moves. I did some nice work on a balance-y V-3, but couldn't figure out my way past what I think was the crux, though it's sometimes hard to tell what the setter thinks the crux is. It may have been the sequence at the beginning.

I went back Sunday morning with Ari, Amanda Downum, and John Remy (geneticblend), because I was still hungry to climb, and it seemed like a good way to keep from stressing out about the awards. It was so much fun, so much better. I love watching people argue with gravity. I wasn't as physically strong as I had been on Wednesday (a result of three days of unbridled bourbon consumption and 4,291 chocolate croissants from the bakery across the street from the hotel), but my technique came back and a bunch of the fear went away.

I glided up a bunch of easier routes, V-1s and a couple V-2s, and then onsighted a new V-3, a very technical problem. I never did finish the V-3 I had started on Wednesday (though I tried a lot), but I worked through the crux of yet another V-3, a really interesting shift from a sloper using a modified heel-hook, up and out laterally about five feet onto a crimp. I hadn't planned for getting past that move, so I ended up jumping down after a minute or so of feeling around with my toe under a bulge for the next foothold, there being no one watching to clue me in. It would have been great to finish it, but it was a perfect move even without that; and like all perfect moves, it clings to my muscles like the memory of a good kiss.

I was so excited last night that I forgot to post!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:25:31 GMT

Yesterday, "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" won the World Fantasy Award for short story. I nearly passed out, but managed not to. I am, as you might expect, thrilled. I'm currently at the SJ airport, but I'll write more when I get home.

Climbing with Emma.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:21:37 GMT

Having completed my packing for San Jose, I found myself with a couple of hours to kill, so I walked across the street to Stone Gardens. I ran into Emma there -- a leggy strawberry blonde almost exactly half my age. She was hit by a truck a couple of years ago, and since then she has been in and out of surgery and casts at a dizzying rate. At the moment she's in a walking cast and has her doctor's permission to climb in it. She can't rely on her left foot, so she climbs a lot of overhangs where it's all about upper-body strength, and does a lot of knee-jams.

So Emma and I climbed together for an hour and a half. She climbs hard for someone in a cast, V-2s and V-3s. I was working to keep up with her. A ton of V-2s, mostly traverses; but also work on a lovely V-3 that requires gastoning the sides of an arch, inching farther out under it until I can reach up over the side and grab something (that's the plan, anyway) -- though I didn't finish it tonight. It'll be here when I get back, I reckon. --And a bunch of very careful stemming that made me feel like moss easing up a wall.

Peter's my usual climbing partner -- 6'2" or taller maybe, very strong and growing stronger pretty much by the week. I've been the better climber for most of our time together, but this spring I had a couple of confidence busters -- some scary outdoor bouldering, and then spraining my ankle on a dyno indoors (Memo to self: No more dynos, but that's what I said last time, too), and he's surpassed me. I wasn't competitive (or not very), but I was so used to the way things were that the change -- Peter flashing V-4s, and me struggling up V-1s -- left me even more uncentered. But the climbing was there before Peter and independent of Peter, and climbing with Emma reminds me of this.

It was a good day climbing, but they mostly are.

I like side cars, too.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:24:47 GMT

I try not to keep clothes I don't wear, but vintage evening dress is my downfall, alas. I just spent an absorbing half-hour at the back of my closet, looking for a jacket for World Fantasy, which I did not find. However, I did find three early '60s velveteen evening swing coats in black, emerald green, and fuschia, with black gloves the correct length for their three quarter–length sleeves; many many other kid or glazed-leather gloves, mostly in black and ivory, though also chartreuse, forest green, and chocolate brown; '60s purses for evening, in silver, gold, champagne, black, navy, and white; and the dresses and shoes that justify all these accessories. I'm glad the holidays are coming.

And because pretty vintage clothes deserve pretty vintage (flavored) music: Michael Bublé's "Everything."

Golden Gardens, Seattle.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:47:32 GMT

I was coming back from the coffeehouse -- crowded and the talk all about a big fire just around the corner early this morning, four restaurants "burned to the ground," everyone said, but the street was still closed so no telling, really; no major injuries and the cats at the cat-rescue storefront were all saved, so this becomes "oh my gosh!" news to everyone who didn't lose their homes at 5am; and the rest of us return to our own intact spaces and look at our things, our little disorganized kitchens, our unmade beds and our socks in the basket, and we feel grateful and smug and guilty -- and on a whim I drove down to Golden Gardens.

The sun is an unexpected, sudden thing in October. It was bright at the beach, though two miles south there was rain and clouds scudding so low that I couldn't see the hill beyond the entrance to the ship canal. The Sound was thick with sailboats, big ones because the wind was too strong for anything small. A kite-surfer sliced through them, quick as a gull, his green and brown kite almost lost in the flying spray. Where I walked barefoot, bright gold maple leaves were half buried in the sand. The air was white with salt and spray and sand, but still, the iron-gray sky to the south, and overhead, hard-driven white clouds and patches of shocking blue. I saw my shadow and my newly cut hair had ruffled up like a bird's feathers.

World Fantasy next week.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:17:39 GMT

Next week, I'll be in San Jose for the World Fantasy Convention, with a couple of days before that with arian1 and harunoame. I'll do a reading at the con, Saturday 10/31, at 10:30am. I'll probably read "Spar" from Clarkesworld -- which is not safe for work, if you were planning on clicking the link.

Reading this Saturday, 10/17!

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:48:33 GMT

Kij Johnson reading
7pm
Saturday, October 17th
Wayward Coffeehouse
8570 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle WA

I'll be reading new work at the Wayward Coffeehouse, Seattle's science-fiction coffee shop.

Spread the news! I'll be giving away several copies of my novels.

SF reading Saturday at 8pm at the Wayward Coffeehouse: Kij Johnson, Lancer Kind, and Tim McDaniel

Thu, 14 May 2009 19:46:52 GMT

Saturday is the inaugural night of the Wayward Coffeehouse's new monthly “Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author Reading Series” featuring local authors reading excerpts from their works. Meet the authors, get books signed, talk about writing, and enjoy stories read by the authors themselves.

This Saturday it'll be Kij Johnson (that would be me), Lancer Kind, and Tim McDaniel.

I'm a Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy-award nominated author whose stories have been published in Analog, Asimov’s, and a number of Best of anthologies. My books include Fudoki and The Fox Woman. I'll be reading a new flash and "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss," which was a finalist for this year's Nebula and Hugo awards.
www.kijjohnson.com

Lancer Kind received honorable mention in the Writers of the Future contest. He is an award-winning short-story author who also writes novels and publishes comic books.
www.lancerkind.com

Tim McDaniel is the author of the “Lonesome Planet Travelers Advisory” which offers advice to aliens visiting Earth. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, and multiple anthologies.
web.mac.com/timmcdaniel1

SATURDAY, May 16
READING: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author Reading Series
8 pm - 10 pm, free
Kij Johnson, Lancer Kind, Tim McDaniel

Wayward Coffeehouse, it's better than a plan
8570 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle WA 98103
www.waywardcoffee.com

I'm reading Saturday at the Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle!

Wed, 13 May 2009 05:12:04 GMT

The Wayward Coffeehouse is a science-fiction coffeehouse in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. Starting at 8 this Saturday, I'll be reading with SF writers Lancer Kind (http://lancerkind.com) and Tim McDaniel. The Wayward's going to be trying to make this a monthly thing, so come offer moral support!

No Nebula for me.

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:22:30 GMT

Monkeys didn't take the trick, alas. On the other hand, I've been nominated for the Nebs twice now, and for World Fantasy twice, and then there's this year's Hugo nom. It would be nice to win one of them, but I can't complain -- well, not and be taken seriously, even by myself.

athenais is even cooler than she was before, which is saying a lot.

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:03:13 GMT

She gave me this splendid userpic.

Congratulations and best wishes to weaselmom and smirkingone!

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 05:43:28 GMT

After seventeen years, you formalize what we all have always known, that you are made for one another.

I don't know if I missed the release date, but I just got my copy in the mail.

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:19:30 GMT

The Nebula Awards Showcase 2009 is out, and "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change" is in it. Powell's Books has it, or check your local bookstore.

I have been writing, but it's the second week running of appointments, other peoples's catastrophes and eucatastrophes, deadlines, and weird health glitches. I feel as though I have all sorts of trouble focusing on anything lately, but work gets done, a lot of it. But not enough!

I ended up cutting 3K words out of the first 14K, and am as finished with that section as I can be until I finish this draft. Tomorrow I head into a sequence that I have majorly rewritten twice in the last six months, which you would think would mean it's in good shape, except that you would be wrong.

It was so breathtaking a day that after working for a while, I took bread and cheese and tea and Daniel Defoe to the Locks, where I sat under a barely-budded tree and watched a little white dog toil up and race down the terraces. I rediscover Defoe every year or so, and am always blown away, again, by his writing. It's A Journal of the Plague Year right now, again, and it's still just magnificent.

Interesting statement in the Penguin edition's introduction by Anthony Burgess:

When post-Wellsian science fiction presents its collective horrors -- either in words or on film -- Defoe is somewhere in the background. Robinson Crusoe and the Journal are the prototypes of all imaginative works that show man, individually and collectively, facing the horrible and unexpected.

These and Moll Flanders -- Defoe is so much of what I love in writing -- his vivid pragmatic characters, the way he builds his stories from incidents instead of arcs, his clean prose. And then it turns out, on top of it all, he was a spy? He's my new dead BF.

"26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss" at starshipsofa.com.

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:26:11 GMT

Diane Severson gives the story a charming reading here.

It's strange and wonderful to hear someone else's voice reading something I created.

Status report.

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:53:33 GMT

Cat is cute, happy and healthy and eating everything I put down in front of her.

Fridge is full of manchego cheese and fresh anchovies -- not a meal to eat inside, or with anyone you don't know extremely well, or maybe anyone at all. I hope tomorrow is nice enough to deserve a picnic like that.

Lots of thinking about the next set of scenes to be rewritten, and I am looking forward to them. Still more cutting! I am admitting to myself that there's going to be yet another pass after this one.

Computer is having some problems. I took it in to the Genius Bar today where they fiddled with some stuff, and if it's still giving trouble next week I'll take it back in. The guy who was helping me is a classical clarinetist and his hand can span a twelfth on the piano. He told me about writing Top 40 radio-station jingles, and I told him about climbing. People are fascinating.

Absolute paydirt at Goodwill: half a dozen new heavyweight silk shawls and scarves, for $1.29 each. And a Ballard tee. I've been wearing a lot of that brown that is almost black lately, and I managed to find a J. Jill jacket in that color.

Neck is getting better. Tomorrow I'll go for a long walk and/or climb, and do a bunch of stretching.

I brought in the hammie girl's cage from the car where I left it after taking her to the vet: everything still in it, water still in her bottle. I'm not sad about her but remembering her with affection, and thinking of all the ways and people and things we love in a lifetime.

Status update.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:56:20 GMT

Not a lot of words, but I solidified the first 8K of the rewrite enough that from here on, the start will only need tweaking for resonance and theme. I passed it off to the cohort, lanerobins and gwyndolin. I didn't get more done because I have had a lot of energy going elsewhere today, but tomorrow should be more focused.

I have a complicated relationship with printers -- okay, it's not complicated: printers fail for me a lot. And by "a lot," I mean "all the time." The semi-solution corwynofamberworked out for me last week when the printers (both of them) failed, has now failed. It's not the printer(s), it's not the driver, and so I fear it must be the computer itself -- and that's why I bought the ultra-mega-uber service contract. This will be the third or fourth time I've taken it to the Genius Bar and had them perform arcane passes over it.

I have never written without many many printouts while I am in progress, and this "no paper" thing feels strange.

Status report.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:52:57 GMT

I rewrote most of a scene that still isn't working properly, though I think it will tomorrow. I did manage my minimum daily word count for this rewrite, currently 700 words. It's a very cumbersome rewrite.

I see the Rolfer tomorrow. I jacked up my neck Monday and it'll be good to get rid of the pain, get a good night's sleep, and be mobile again! I am so seldom in back or neck pain any more that I forget how debilitating it is. Good to be reminded every so often, but okay, lesson learned.

Peanut butter cookies and then hulu, I think.

Status report.

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:31:02 GMT

I took out 300 words and added 600, which doesn't seem like that much when I write it down baldly like that; at the time, it felt like making a toothpick by chewing down a tree. I have one more big scene in this section to revise, but I think I'm not sharp enough to do it tonight.

The trouble with small-batch baking is that it's really hard not to, say, make some cookies just because I can, even though I made scones earlier today just because I could then, too.

Status report.

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:41:11 GMT

Revised about 1100 words of Kylen. I seem to be removing a scene I like a lot, because I just can't work it into the pacing at the book's start, dammit.

Figured out most of the applicants for the novel workshop, but I am still awaiting some last answers from people.

Staggeringly beautiful day: sunlight and cool air. Spent an hour at Stone Gardens and got a move farther on a project there, and then cricked my neck.

Tatsuko still hasn't eaten much since her surgery last week, but she does drink water off tuna and chicken now. I got her to lick wet catfood off my fingertips this afternoon, but she needs to suck it up and start doing her own eating. She's so skinny! I worry about her.

See, this is why I haven't used LJ much lately. Life well-lived can be pretty uninteresting to read about. I'd like to think I am saving it all for my Art, so you feel free to think that, as well.

Writer's Block: Grab and Go

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:06:28 GMT

Scenario: For exactly 1 minute, you get access to all the databases of all the intelligence agencies in the world (CIA, FBI, KGB, MI-5, etc). What do you want to find out before time is up and you're caught and jailed forever?

View 503 Answers

I think I'd get Rove's and Cheney's dossiers and an open connection to the outside world.

To be honest, I would get more pleasure from knowing what exactly they had on one of my friends, who in college got into what you might call a spot of trouble with the Feds.

Accountability, dammit.

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:44:28 GMT

Ever since finishing the draft of Kylen at the end of February, I have had a terrible time getting refocused on writing. The rewrite is a huge project, because the book was written over years and I changed the voice, plot, and characters as I worked on it. So, even though I just did a ton of work? I have tons more to do, and it feels almost as daunting and impossible as finishing the first draft did.

There's also a lot of stuff I need to be doing that is professional but not the book itself. I am reading applications to the novel workshop I'm teaching this summer, and I have work I need to do for the Sturgeon Award anthology that the Center for the Study of Science Fiction wants to do. I also have a brutal piece of flash fiction I've been working on. And I have the Tor book I want to start. And I have other books I might or might not want to pitch that I need to think about.

Beyond this, there's the rest of my life, both happy bits and irksome. It's spring! There's climbing. There's socializing. I (reluctantly) job-hunt, because I have to for unemployment benefits. And there's always something one-off, something that can't really be scheduled around: the 'flu I caught in mid March (and I am still not quite over) and Tatsuko and traveling. Right now it's Tatsuko again, who may need to go back to the vet tomorrow, because she's not drinking much yet.

So: not writing needs to change. I need to be able to finish Kylen and organize the rest of the many things I want to write. The class and my responsibilities to the anthology need to be balanced with this. And I need to run around in the sun and feel good and climb and goof off.

papersky just started logging daily progress on her newest project. I myself did that here years ago, and I think it's probably worth doing again. So here's the skinny for the day. I did not work on Kylen, but for an hour or so, I did poke and prod a late draft on a short story. It's my first horror story in twenty years and taking a lot longer than 1500 words should, but I don't want it to be just visceral. I did some reading for the novel class.

And then I went to the locks and sat in the sun and read Cold Comfort Farm. Guess which part of the day I liked best? Loved the book, which is charming, with a perfect, surprisingly complex ending.

Tomorrow will be more disciplined. But I sure hope I don't have to take her to the vet.

eta: Sirens galore, and the local 911 reports intriguingly lists the response type as "Rescue Rope" and gives as address the corner outside my apartment. The game is afoot. eta2: I am guessing someone fell off their patio into the Sound.